Welcome, we’re kicking off Poetry Awareness with a new poem by Marge Simon, from her Stoker nominated book THE MAD HATTERY…among other goodies…

Lovecraft’s Wife

I owned a hat shop when we met,

a tradeswoman of distinction,

beloved by my aunts, who frowned

when they saw his long jaw

and meager prospects.

“Sonia,” he would say, “may we

dine at home, as proper folk, for

I fear your aunts will eat me live.”

And I would tell him otherwise,

for I so craved human company,

after reading his most gruesome tales,

that crept into the fine designs

of my chapeaus, ‘ere I was aware.

*Note: His wife, Sonia Greene, owned a hat shop when H.P.L. married her.

Marge Simon

(Art by Sandy DeLuca)

Below is a Dark Poets Column, from 2005, edited by Marge Simon…

This time around, I’ve enlisted two prominent genre poets to discuss the process and rewards of collaborations. David C. Koposka-Merkel edits Dreams & Nightmares and is one of a handful of editors who both write and publish poetry. Both have published several collections and collaborated numerous times. Both are Rhysling recipients. Please note the way they’ve approached the topic. I feel like we’re all sitting together in the same room! Thanks, guys. – Marge Simon

DARK COLLABORATIONS by Kendall Evans & David C. Kopaska-Merkel

David C. Kopaska-Merkel and I have written over 20 poems together, and we are currently at work on another. The poems range from sf to fantasy, to dark or horror poetry. So when Marge Simon asked if we would like to write a guest column for the HWA newsletter, about collaborative poetry, it seemed a logical topic for the two of us to tackle. And it struck me there are a lot of things David and I do instinctively, without really talking about them–and that we might even have different ideas about the process. For instance, the motives and strategies for writing a poetry collaboration would be a little different from those for an author writing a poem alone. And there are rewards and frustrations that are also most likely different from those a lone writer experiences. So, to kick things off, I asked David about this.

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That sounds like Kendall is planning to interview me about our collaborations. Considering our collaboration as a unit, that seems almost incestuous, or something. But that might be a pretty surprising interview, for both of us. So to answer your questions….

Motives!? I didn’t know I would have to reveal my motives! As for strategy, I usually originate a collaboration the same way I start any of my poems. However, I choose for a proposed collaboration a fragment for which I don’t see a clear path. Once the collaboration is underway I try to write in a style that is harmonious with my collaborator’s style. For example, I normally use a lot of punctuation but Kendall doesn’t. I take this into account when collaborating with him.

Rewards? First, I didn’t know any of my collaborators well when we started. So one reward is making new friends. Second, the result is almost always a poem I would not have written by myself. Third, these poems sometimes end up in markets I would never have tried, or would not have gotten into, with my solo stuff.

One of the frustrations in collaborating is that sometimes a poem does not go where you intend. I may have in mind a dark, brooding, unpleasant journey toward death, and Kendall may go all perky on me. In “The Bus Stops Here,” which was published this past January in Strange Horizons, Kendall started inserting parenthetical stanzas using the voice of a narrator with a personal interest in the outcome. I had envisioned a more dispassionate tone until the end. But then, this is one I would not have written by myself and it seems to have worked. On balance, the seamy underbelly of collaboration is dwarfed by its rewards.

And now it’s your turn.

* * * * * * *

Thank you, David. Now I guess I’d better attempt to respond to my own questions. Motives? It’s been said that writing is a lonely task, but a collaboration allows you to interact with another author or poet, and you get to know each other a little better in the process. I felt that David and I, working together to create sf/fantasy/horror poems, could not help but make at least a million dollars within the first six months.

While several years have gone by and we are still somewhat shy of that mark, I’m not worried. More to the point, I thought it would be fun and challenging to collaborate with David on some poems. I was right about that, and it’s my opinion that the two of us work very well together. If there are darker motives somewhere down there in my unconscious, I remain blissfully unaware of them.

Rewards? The rewards are pretty obvious I think. I believe I’m echoing David on this; I’m able to take part in the creation of a unique poem that I would never be able to write on my own. Collaborating introduces an element of unpredictability into the process, and I believe that this unpredictability is a valuable contribution to creativity. David has taken a number of our poems in directions I would not have dreamt of.

Frustrations? When an author goes solo on a work, he can put in anything he damn well pleases, but the contents of a collaboration need a final o.k. by both parties. If I ever suffer such minor frustrations, I remind myself that the poem is our poem, not my poem. Sometimes, too, I’ll write what I believe it the end of the poem, and David comes along and adds two or three more stanzas afterwards. After about 30 seconds of panic, I adjust. And whatever minimal frustrations there might be, the rewards by far outweigh them.

Now I’ll bounce this back to David and see if he has some questions of his own, or additional thoughts on the subject.

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I have collaborated with several other people, but none for more than a few poems and most for only one. I think there is a difference when a pair collaborates repeatedly. We develop a joint oeuvre and one can look at it retrospectively as one can at one’s own solo work. Looking back at what Kendall and I have done so far I think the benefits of our collaboration are obvious. And I guess that brings me to one more thought; in effect, we have created a new poet. Our collaborative work forms a corpus that neither of us would have produced alone.

People might be curious about authorship. What we have done is to give the first author slot to whoever started a poem. That person is also responsible for marketing the poem. I don’t know about Kendall, but when he has started a couple in a row I feel like I really need to start one myself so as to carry my share of the load. Over the years I haven’t counted but I guess we have been pretty close to even in this regard.

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And what is the result of these collaborative efforts by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans? A question best answered by the poems themselves. Two Examples follow.